China:The Beijing government is putting the Tibetan language in jeopardy by forcing children in the Himalayan region to learn Mandarin Chinese and not supporting the indigenous tongue, the Free Tibet Campaign has said in new report.
Efforts to undermine the language are part of a broader attempt to undermine Tibetan culture, the organisation said.
The People's Liberation Army occupied Tibet in 1950 and Beijing has kept a tight grip on it ever since. Tibetan activists say tourists and migration by ethnic Han Chinese could swamp the enclave's distinctive Tibetan Buddhist culture, a problem they say has worsened since the introduction of better road and air links to Tibet and, more recently, a rail line to Lhasa.
Beijing says it is bringing economic prosperity to the desperately poor region and that Tibetans enjoy a high degree of autonomy, including protection and support for the language.
"China's insistence on Chinese language in Tibetan schools has failed a generation of Tibetans, who now lag behind the rest of China in terms of basic literacy," said Free Tibet campaigner Matt Whitticase.
"But the one-language policy in Tibet goes beyond education; it is part of a more general assault on Tibetan culture and identity. The growing prevalence of the Chinese language in all spheres of Tibetan public life automatically advantages Chinese settlers over Tibetans," he said after the group launched a report called "Forked tongue: Tibetan language under attack".
Exiled Tibetan teacher Tsering Dorje called for the Tibetan language to be made the region's official language. He said letters with addresses in Tibetan failed to get delivered, and parents were increasingly speaking to their children in Chinese, hoping to give them an edge in a society where their mother tongue was being marginalised.
"Certainly there are few lucrative job prospects for Tibetans who have not been educated in Chinese. Nor is it possible for a student educated in Tibetan to acquire professional qualifications at college or university. There are no relevant courses taught in Tibetan," he said in the report.